Eye Magazine

Founded in 2000 by graphic designers Jan Wilker and Hjalti Karlsson, with Vera Yuan joining as partner in 2020, Karlssonwilker Inc. provides an insightful look into their design methodology and process for a vast array of components for the Calder Garden identity. With the subtitle ‘A publication about going from nothing to something’, the book has a tone that does not take themselves too seriously. For example, in a spread showing a potential option for outdoor signage, the caption reads, ‘For a few hours Hjaiti was convinced this was a masterpiece.’

The publication uses what Karlssonwilker Inc. refers to as their ‘house font’, the typeface they created called KWINC Grotesk, and was printed on Holmen TRND 70gsm for the interior. Throughout the different sections, the studio walks the reader through the stages of the project, from the first meeting at the Calder Foundation, to the second meeting in Roxbury, Connecticut, visiting Calder’s house and studio, all the way to the twelfth presentation to the Calder Gardens Board at the Barnes Foundation.

Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ Alphabets (Letterform Archive). Introduction by Morgane Côme. $65

Beginning with a fascinating introduction by contemporary French sign painter Morgane Côme, this sizeable publication features a colourful array of alphabets and letterforms from hand-painted signs in France during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With twelve portfolio selections, the publication includes more than 150 plates from lithographic albums, which were printed during the peak era of sign painting.

Côme includes a 25-page introduction called ‘Rediscovering a two-hundred-year-old craft’, with citations and footnotes, in which she discusses the transatlantic revival of the craft of sign painting. Walking the reader through the historical aspects of the craft – from the transition of pictorial signs to painted letters after the rise of public literacy due to the invention of Gutenberg’s press, to the founding of institutes in Brussels dedicated to the art of decorative painting – Côme documents this resurgence with visuals that punctuate the historical elements of the craft and efforts to keep sign painting alive and well.

The featured letter templates and albums of painted letters from historical lithographic albums are set in chronological order with examples by decorative painters Jean-Jacques Petit, Honoré Opin, Georges-Adolph Bisiaux, Pierre Chabat and many more. The extracts include a range of styles, from serif to script to three-dimensional ornate type, with many colourful examples popping off of the page. For more about Letterform Archive, see the Reputations interview with founder Rob Saunders in Eye 108.

New New Typography: Adventures in Transborder Typography (Sorry Press). By Matter of (eds.). €25.

Posing the question, ‘Are we stuck with the established typographic principles of the twentieth century?,‘ New New Typography aims to shake up established paradigms surrounding typography and look through an expanded (and more inclusive) vocabulary. The introduction starts with a discussion of the systematic typographic principles proposed by Jan Tschichold in ‘The New Typography‘ more than 100 years ago, and brings in an open-ended re-examination of typography principles, with a proposition into trying new ways of viewing and engaging with typography and testing the boundaries.

Edited by Matter of, a design studio based in Stuttgart, the 250-page publication includes a multitude of figures and six theoretical proposals named ‘Translinear’, ‘Transdimensional’, ‘Transmodal’, ‘Transmedia’, ‘Transcultural’ and ‘Transdependent’, which were shaped after many conversations with key voices on the subject of typography. The publication contains works and thoughts by Bye Bye Binary, James Langdon (see ‘Chaos and confidence’), Johanna Drucker (see Eye 18), HAL Typefaces, Eye columnist Rick Poynor, TypeTogether (See Eye 109), Sophie Kraft and Studio HanLi, among others.

Over 250 pages, many texts feature key phrases, such as ‘line as form’, ‘dialogical layout’, ‘diagrammatic’ and ‘fluid letterform’, set in highlighted blue text that helps guide the reader into the idea of the new (new) vocabulary that Matter of is proposing.

Unfollow the Leader: Student perspectives on the graphic design canon (Not Yet. Publishers). Edited and designed by Hugo Puttaert. €25.

Compiled by graphic designer, curator, educator and writer Hugo Puttaert, Unfollow the Leader reflects on what design means today and the ever-evolving role of the graphic designer. The introduction by Puttaert, in both English and Dutch, recalls texts such as British design critic Rick Poynor’s Obey the Giant and British designer Ken Garland’s manifesto ‘First Things First’, both which encouraged a critical eye on the duty and responsibilities of designers. He also discusses the influence of fast-paced changes in the digital realm, such as social media and artificial intelligence and encourages the opportunity for deeper ‘reflection, experimentation and a critical practice’.

With more than 200 pages, the book also features twelve short excerpts written by Puttaert, such as ‘The tangle of the canon’, ‘Practice- or customer-oriented’ and ‘I research, therefore I am’. The book is rooted in work by Puttaert’s students from Sint Lucas Antwerpen, School of Arts, responses to different prompts proposed by Puttaert. This student work is chaptered out by projects taking on different forms, most inspired by different designers from ‘recent design history’.

With five chapters based off the assigned projects, the first chapter features a reader – prompting the creation of an easily reproducible A5 reader with reflection into how the students might visualise and narrate recent design history. The second chapter titled ‘Announcement‘ prompts a small poster that serves as an announcement for a fictional event inspired by work an influential graphic designer’s work. The chapter ‘Dazibao’ (a large-scale wall poster in China used for public communication) asks for a large poster to be displayed in public spaces that draws on the idea of Dazibao.

Eye editors, London

Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions and single issues.